Edge of Chaos (4 page)

“There he is!”
Carter announces.

Three men astride
enormous tricked out Harleys are positioned in a blind spot around a tight
curve in the road just outside town. A lone biker from the Harbingers motorcycle
club flies by. He’s oblivious to the danger as he passes them at a cool 65
miles an hour.

The three waiting
bikers’ engines spring to life with an ear-splitting roar. Suddenly, four huge
motorcycles are cruising along the highway towards Stinson beach. Once they get
to a particularly straight stretch, Carter and Marty pull up on either side of
the Harbinger while Luke hangs back. After a minute, Luke reaches down and
retrieves a sawn-off shotgun from its makeshift holster. The Browning .410 pump
action shotgun with a highly polished, modified walnut stock and a shortened 12
barrel is easily the weapon of choice for Luke when a handgun clearly is not suitable
for the job.

Just before the
next bend in the road both Carter and Marty back off and Luke speeds up until
he’s about 10 feet from the enemy biker. Luke aims the gun carefully at the
bike’s exposed back tire and pulls the trigger.

The fat back tire
explodes and literally disintegrates before Luke’s eyes. It all happens so fast
he almost doesn’t have time to recover and avoid the pieces of rubber and
motorcycle parts as the chopper comes apart at eighty miles an hour. The
Harbinger hits the pavement hard and his helmet strikes the unyielding surface
with an audible crack. His body, with his limbs flailing, slides and rolls
until it comes to a stop against the guard rail.

Luke, Carter, and
Marty come to a stop a few feet away. Luke walks up to the guard rail and peers
over the edge; the scene is disorienting. They are on the top of a sheer cliff,
roughly 100 feet high, with a violent sea lurking below.

“Holy shit!” exclaims
Marty. “He just about took a swim.”

The Harbinger
groans and begins to stir.

“What’re we gonna
do with him?” Carter asks.

“Boys,” Luke
exclaims with a huge grin on his face. “We’re going to take him for a swim.”

“We’re going down
there?” Marty asks.

“Of course, not,”
Luke replies. “He can jump from here.”

The three Suicide
Kings grab the Harbinger and frog march him over to the guard rail.  The four
men look at the turbulent water below.

“Holy fuck!” exclaims
Marty. “That’s a long, long way down. I wonder, do you pass out before you hit the
ground when you fall that far, or are you awake until the moment you hit?
Someone told me once that you pass out.”

Luke turns to the
Harbinger. “Listen up, guy. Marty here needs an answer to his question, so
we’ll need you to scream all the way down until you hit the water. That way we
know you passed out if you stop screaming before you hit.”

“You guys are fuckin'
assholes!" The Harbinger yells.

Luke raises his
gun to the Harbingers chest. The man throws his arms up in surrender and walks
back until he steps up on the rail, turns towards Marty and grabs his cut
before leaping off the cliff. His action is so unexpected that neither Carter
nor Luke can make a move to stop their brother from falling until it’s too
late. At the last second, Luke reaches out to grab his brother, but all he gets
is air. He looks on in horror and the two men, still clinging to one another go
catapulting down towards the sea. Luke looks away at the last second.

Marty was one of
the newer members and Carter’s protégé. The other day, the guy was willing to
give his life to protect Carter and the rest of the club. Every brother
professes that kind of loyalty because it’s expected, but not everyone actually
steps up to the plate and puts their life on the line the way Marty did.

For most members
the club is their family. But just like any other family, the Suicide Kings
still have their squabbles.

“Fuck! Fuck, fuck,
fuck, fuck…” Carter is beside himself in anguish. He'd taken Marty under his
wing and they were close. “How the fuck did that happen?”

He walks over to
the Harbinger’s bike and attempts to drag it to the edge but he’s just not
strong enough to move the thing. Luke joins him but it soon becomes clear that
they don’t have the strength to get it up and over the guard rail.

“Look, just forget
it. We better get out of here before someone comes asking questions,” Luke
says. “If we stay, we’re both going to jail and how can you avenge Marty’s
death if you’re behind bars? Take a second and collect yourself because we
still have business to do brother.”

Luke gives Carter
another minute or two before getting on his bike and starting it up. Pretty
soon, they’re on their way to their first destination, an out of the way town
called Downey, California. There, they’ll find a 16-foot truck, already loaded
with merchandise. They will open up the back, load their bikes and take off to
the drop point, where they’ll hand over the truck and the goods and ride back
to Oakland on their motorcycles.

The goods, of
course, are an assortment of firearms ranging from fully automatic H&K 9mm
handguns and .50 caliber machine guns to rocket launchers. There are a total of
56 guns in today’s shipment and it has to go off without a hitch. Both their
supplier and client are new, so the potential for a fuck-up on somebody’s end
is fairly high. Anything could go wrong; suppliers might ‘accidentally’ tip off
the authorities, runners could pick up a tail, or the drop-off point can be
compromised. The fact that they'd run across a lone Harbinger on the way to the
pick-up spot is cause for concern; this isn't Harbinger territory.

Luke is in favor
of cancelling the run, but he’s overruled. In about two hours, the remaining
two Kings will arrive at the pick-up spot. It’s a stressful two hours too. When
everything around could be a possible threat, you can’t afford to relax or
become complacent.

The two Kings
arrive at the truck stop in Downey right on time. They'd chosen to do the run
in the middle of the day to avoid attracting any undue attention. They do one
more sweep with their eyes before making their approach—They're clean.

Carter climbs in
the back of the truck to inventory the weapons while Luke and two guys from the
Gotham City Jokers, who have come to help with the exchange, load the bikes.
Ten minutes later, Luke and Carter are in the truck driving down highway one
towards Agora, California. It’s a gruelling run. After the 6-hour drive there,
they’ll unload their bikes and make the 7-hour ride back to Oakland with a fat
wad of cash in hand. If the run is successful, there will be plenty of alcohol
and hookers awaiting their return.

About four hours
into the trip, along a lonely stretch of highway, Carter spots what he believes
may be a tail. There couldn't be a worse place for a problem to arise. They're
too far away for backup to reach them from their own club and there are no
friendlies anywhere around either. They are on their own.

“We picked up a
lone motorcycle,” warns Carter.

“Only one?”

“Wait…we just
picked up three more,” Carter replies.

“Shit. We’re about
to be cut off and surrounded. There’s a lever behind your seat. Pull that lever
and a panel will open up giving you access to the crates. Just push really hard
on that panel,” Luke continues, “and it’ll come open. You should be able to
crawl through and retrieve a couple weapons. Get and couple H&K’s and a
rocket launcher if you can find any rockets. Do it fast, we don’t have much
time.”

Carter reaches
around behind his seat until he locates the lever. He pulls up hard until the
panel opens up. He gets out of his chair and crawls through the opening.

“Hurry it up,
Carter! I think I see lights ahead.”

Luke slows the
truck down. No point rushing to an ambush.

“Come on, Carter…
what’s happening back there?”

For an answer, he
deposits a pair of Heckler and Koch 9mm hand guns along with four extra
magazines onto the passenger’s seat. He goes back to digging around, keenly
aware that they are running out of time. Finally, he locates the crate with the
rocket launchers. As he’s prying open the crate, he feels the truck coming to a
standstill. With his heart in his mouth, he asks for an update.

“We stopped. Why’d
we stop?”

“They got the road
blocked,” Luke replies as he loads one of the H&K’s. “Hurry up with that
rocket, Carter. They’re all bunched up now, but when they make a run at us,
that thing will be useless.”

“I know, I know…”

Finally, he
locates the rockets and drops them both on the front seat. Luke glances behind
them. The bikers have yet to advance, but the crew to their front appears to be
getting ready to make their attack.

“At least
they
won’t be shooting rockets at us,” Luke says.

“Why not?”

“They obviously
know our cargo, so they’re not going to want to blow it up.”

“Unless their goal
isn't to steal our guns,” Carter begins, “but to just show our clients that we
can’t protect our shipments. In that case, they’re gonna blow us to kingdom
come.”

“You got that
thing figured out yet?” Luke asks.

 “I think so…” Carter
says, as he tries to arm an M72A2 LAW rocket launcher in the dark.

“Remember, you
gotta hang out of the cab or you’re gonna blow us all up.”

“Got it.”

“Shit, they’re on
the move! You either shoot that thing now or we go to plan B.”

Carter scrambles
out of the back of the truck and into the cab.

“You got about
three seconds, Carter, before it’s too late.”

“Shut up and let
me think!”

Luke throws the
truck into reverse and slams on the gas.

Carter leans out
the window and points the rocket towards the lights. He presses the trigger.

Click

“Shit!”

“Don’t say shit,
Carter; what the fuck’s happening?”

“I don’t know…”

Suddenly, the air
is full of popping sounds and breaking glass. Luke leans out his window and
empties his H&K.

“Carter!”

A sudden whoosh
fills the cab and for an instant both Carter and Luke are blinded by the flame
trail left by the rocket. An instant later, a huge orange fireball fills the
night sky and the front end of the truck is lifted up off the ground as the
shockwave from the blast reaches them and passes through.

“Carter! You
okay?”

After a brief
pause, the other biker speaks up. “Yeah, I’m okay. See if you can get this
thing going. We still got 3 guys behind us.”

Luke stops and
shifts into first, desperate to plow forward. They approach the burned out
wrecks of a half dozen or so motorcycles scattered about on the blackened
highway. The air is full of the acrid smell of smoke, burning flesh, and
gasoline. The carnage from a single LAW's rocket is astounding. As they maneuver
through the detritus, Luke breathes a sigh of relief. This could have been him.
Once clear of the wreckage, he floors it. At some point, the three guys behind
them are going come after them. They’ll figure out that there’s nothing to be
done for their friends and they’ll be looking for revenge.

Luke throws the
truck into 4th and steps on it. They really do need to beat their pursuers. The
client’s not going be happy if they come in hot to the drop point.

“What I wouldn’t
give for a GPS right now…,” Luke grumbles.

“You don’t know
where the drop is?”

“Of course, I do.
I just know one route. I want to take a different route so we can be sure to
lose those guys behind us. I don’t suppose you know this area?”

“Sorry, boss.”

“Well, keep your
fingers crossed ‘cause I have an idea those guys are gonna catch up with us
before the night’s over.”

“Do you think we
should just ditch it?”

“You kidding?”
Luke asks.

“No, I’m not.
Ditch it, burry the guns and live to fight another day. You got their number,
right? Well, call them to set up a meeting in a couple days after the Harbingers
or whoever those guys were back there are gone.”